High on drink and a cocktail of drugs, Joe Corner stole his trusting friend’s car and smashed it into the wall of a Tyneside nursery.

Corner was a regular visitor to the home of the victim, a woman who had known him since he was a boy and had looked after him.

But in an abuse of trust, Corner helped himself to her car keys and stole her Nissan Juke after consuming drugs including cocaine, amphetamines and morphine and while more than twice the drink drive limit.

A court heard he careered out of control over a roundabout then smashed into the wall and railings around a nursery in South Shields.

Now the 21-year- old had been jailed for 18 months at Newcastle Crown Court for aggravated vehicle taking, excess alcohol and driving while unfit through drugs.

Judge Amanda Rippon told him: “The complainant did not deserve for you to take her car and drive it into the side of the nursery.

“Fortunately, it was 9pm and not at a time when the nursery was open.

“Things could have been worse but this is a very bad piece of driving.

“It was a bad and mean thing to do to someone who trusted you.”

The court heard Corner smashed the Nissan Juke through the outer wall of a nursery, near the junction of Stanhope Road and Temple Park Road, in South Shields, on March 4.

Ashfield Nursery in South Shields

Prosecutor Emma Dowling said he had taken the spare key to the car during a visit to the home of his friend a few days before the smash.

Miss Dowling said: “She has known the defendant for a number of years, she thinks about a decade, and has helped him on occasions when he had been having trouble with his own parents.”

The court heard the owner had not realised the key, or even the car, had gone from her driveway until she was informed it had been involved in a crash.

One witness to the smash said the car travelled at speed across a roundabout near the nursery and smashed into the wall.

The witness, who had been jogging past the scene, found Corner slumped unconscious behind the wheel after the collision.

Miss Dowling said: “He couldn’t get any reaction from him for a couple of minutes.

“He, at that stage, formed the opinion he clearly was not fit to drive.”

The court heard the jogger kept Corner, who was “stumbling around” when he left the car, at the scene until the police arrived.

Corner, of Bunyan Avenue, South Shields, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking, driving with excess alcohol, driving while unfit through drugs and having no licence or insurance.

He was jailed for 18 months banned from driving for two years.

Graeme Cook, defending, said Corner had innocently taken the car keys off his friend’s baby a few days before and pocketed them without thinking.

Mr Cook said: “He had no intention, at that stage, of doing anything.”